The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1887-12-08
THE MATINEES
Now . Settled and Successful Feature in
New York's Entertainments.
Copyrighted. 18@.1


New York's Entertainments.
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Matinee performances have become settled
feature in New Yorks entertainment. "New
York" Is q general term for the metropolis and
. section of country embraced in the radius Of
twenty-five miles from the city hall. Brook.
lyn, williamsburg, that indefinite quantity
known as Long Island, Staten Island, Hobo
ken, Newark and "up the river turn Out
their multitudes every Saturday afternoon
and they, coming early to town, lunch here
or there, do little shopping, and make the
streets choral with their merry laughter and
incessant chatter.
The matinee patronage of New York and
vicinity ID . very significant factor in the
weekly receipts of every first-class theatre in
town. In view of the fact that ladies and
children form . very large proportion Of the
multitude aforesaid, IL appears strange that
mansgen pay such little attention to the
comfort, convenience and pecuniary interest
Of their patrons.
The Academy of Music and all our theatres
prior toa matinee performance are the grand
focal points for women, children. dudes,
mashers and speculators. The crush in the
vestibules after the doors are open, the indie
cent pushing, hauling and rushing of the
frantic individuals composing the crowd, the
utter imbecility and apparent impotency OF
the officials, and the utter disregard of man.
ayers for the comfort and convenience of
women, who are rudely thrust from point to
point, and of little children, who buried in
the crowd, are unable to see or to know
whittier they are pushed or hauled combine
TO make . picture as amazing as 1t is
extraordinary. On Philharmonic days
these scenes are exaggerated to a degree
which husbands and fathers, not being pres
derstand when informed about. But no one
who has witnessed the rudeness of the ladies
themselves, the callousness and utter in
difference Of the men in the crowd, the
calm placidity with which police officers re-
gard the tumult, would refuse to indorse the
assertion that the men and women there
congregated, in one common struggle and in
one conspicuous effort, by sheer strength
and brazen efffontery, to outwit and out
place their neighbors are much more like
ssvages. long kept from . desired meal, or
animals hungry and thirsty to the degree of
evaporation.
Another feature about this crowding il
one which requires official notice, being
most reprehensible from every point of
view-legal - well a. social.
The law expressly forbids o crowding of
si6les In any place of entertainment, and
also tsch assemblages Of people about the
inner ts,ors of any house OF entertainment
= shall make the exit Of those inside diff
cult in case of danger or necessity. Never
theles after every seat in the house has
bsD sold to individuals who hold coupons
snOtling them to individual seats admission
tickets are sold by the many hundreds.
A question of equity instantly arises.
II, for instance. when Patti was singing in
the Academy of Music and every seat being
sold, ladies, hundreds of them, having
bought admission, say "Where are we
70 gor' they are permitted by the ushets
70 monopolize the stairways leading to
the lower portions of the house. and to
Aock into the doors until they trench upon
the spaces in the aisles, and form an
impenetrsble mass at every point of
advantage. 10 that in case of panic
y disturbance tree exit from an al
ready overcrowded place would be q physi-
cal impossibility., This is what they pay for,
however; and II, q on several Saturdays
peat, 1t becomes necessary to call upon the
Police TO aid the ushers in their duty and to
psevsnt women from crowding further down
the aisles than in the judgment Of the chief
ash9 10 sdvisable, the question means con-
ddegable. Surely these tickets are not pur-
nhnao6 In OrflAf that ladies NAV promenada